OCC Policy Statements

Key dates

2026-08-27

OCC revised PPM 5310-3 and PPM 5400-11, issued Bulletin 2026-41, and published the proposed rulemaking notice concerning substantive and technical violations. The proposed rule's 30-day comment period begins only upon Federal Register publication.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to map open and recently closed MRAs and enforcement actions against the revised material-financial-risk threshold and the stated tailoring factors of capital structure, complexity, activities, and asset size.
• Banks should consider documenting objective facts, legal violations, financial-risk consequences, customer impact, duration, frequency, severity, and remediation status supporting the classification and closure of examination findings.
• Large and complex banks may wish to reassess escalation risk because the OCC expressly permits enforcement action for practices that might not produce the same response at a community bank.
• Banks should consider reviewing corrective-action plans to confirm that each action is directly tied to a specific deficiency and is proportionate to the risk, while preserving evidence of substantial compliance with existing orders.
• Compliance teams may wish to distinguish substantive violations from potential technical violations in issue-management inventories, including systemic or repeated conduct, customer restitution, books-and-records impacts, financial-condition effects, and insider misconduct.
• Banks should consider monitoring the Federal Register for publication of the proposed rule and calculating the 30-day comment period from that publication date; affected institutions may wish to submit comments on the proposed substantive-versus-technical framework.
• Examiners may identify lower-level weaknesses as supervisory observations rather than MRAs; banks should consider maintaining internal governance and risk records for such observations without assuming that the OCC may require a board action plan or track remediation in the same manner as an MRA.

What changed

Revised PPM 5310-3, Bank Enforcement Action and Related Matters, replaces the May 25, 2023 version and emphasizes escalation, tailoring, and focused corrective action. The OCC generally expects to provide a bank an opportunity to remediate deficiencies through supervision before taking an enforcement action under section 8 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, although it retains authority to act at any time when legally supportable.

Key dates

2026-06-24

Venezuela experienced a pair of strong earthquakes off the northern coast west of Caracas, triggering the humanitarian crisis referenced by the agencies.

2026-07-27

FinCEN issued a substantively similar statement of enforcement policy regarding Venezuela-related financial services.

2026-07-31

The OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, and NCUA issued the joint enforcement policy.

2026-07-31

Start of the period during which authorized financial services to persons or entities in Venezuela are covered by the enforcement commitment.

2027-01-29 Deadline

End of the covered period for the joint enforcement commitment.

Suggested considerations

• Compliance teams may wish to confirm whether current Venezuela-related activity falls within the scope of authorized financial services covered by the joint statement.
• Institutions may wish to verify that their BSA compliance program remains current and that ongoing controls reflect reasonable efforts to comply during the relief period.
• Firms may wish to check whether they have had any final FinCEN or OCC enforcement action involving BSA violations in the prior 24 months before relying on the policy.
• Sanctions teams may wish to confirm continued compliance with all applicable OFAC-administered sanctions regulations and authorizations.
• Institutions with Venezuela exposure may wish to document how they will evidence reliance on the policy and monitor the January 29, 2027 end date.

What changed

The agencies stated that eligible U.S. financial institutions that choose to provide authorized financial services to persons or entities in Venezuela will not be subject to supervisory action, including a citation for a violation of law, or enforcement action related to a Bank Secrecy Act requirement, for those services. The commitment is limited to authorized financial services provided from 2026-07-31 through 2027-01-29 and applies only to statutes or regulations specifically addressed in the joint statement.